Public bug reported: ## Summary
The XFCE panel StatusNotifier plugin `libsntray-xfce.so` (package **xfce4-sntray-plugin**) leaks memory continuously. On the affected system a single panel-plugin wrapper process hosting this plugin grew to **~6.4 GB resident (20% of total RAM)** after roughly **18 hours** of normal desktop use — an unbounded leak of approximately **350 MB/hour**. The plugin runs inside an `xfce4-panel` `wrapper-2.0` process, so the leak slowly consumes all system memory and will eventually trigger swapping / OOM. ## Affected component | Item | Value | |------|-------| | Plugin file | `/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xfce4/panel/plugins/libsntray-xfce.so` | | Package | `xfce4-sntray-plugin` `0.4.13.1-5` (Ubuntu `questing/universe`) | | Plugin build date | 2024-10-05 | | Host panel | `xfce4-panel` `4.20.4-1` | | OS | Ubuntu 25.10 (questing), kernel 6.17.0-29-generic, x86_64 | | GTK | libgtk-3.so.0.2418.32 | | Upstream | https://gitlab.com/vala-panel-project/xfce4-sntray-plugin (**archived/read-only**) | ## Evidence ### Process / memory snapshot Command line of the leaking process: ``` /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xfce4/panel/wrapper-2.0 \ /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xfce4/panel/plugins/libsntray-xfce.so \ 6 16777229 sntray StatusNotifier Plugin Display AppIndicators in FlowBox ``` `/proc/<pid>/status` (PID 1504190): ``` VmPeak: 6965592 kB (~6.6 GB) VmRSS: 6569436 kB (~6.4 GB) RssAnon: 6558280 kB (~6.4 GB) <- essentially all anonymous heap RssFile: 11156 kB VmSwap: 0 kB Threads: 5 ``` ### The leak is one growing glibc heap `/proc/<pid>/smaps` shows the resident memory is almost entirely a **single contiguous `[heap]` region**, not mmap'd arenas or shared files: ``` 6564016 kB 5c0f0fa19000-5c10a0458000 rw-p [heap] Private_Dirty: 6410 MB Anonymous: 6410 MB ``` A single, monotonically growing main-arena heap is the classic signature of **leaked `malloc`/`g_malloc` allocations** (objects allocated and never freed), as opposed to fragmentation or legitimately large working sets. ### Leak rate ``` Process start : Fri Jun 5 14:12:11 2026 Snapshot : Sat Jun 6 08:17:31 2026 Elapsed : ~18h 05m RssAnon : ~6.4 GB => ~350 MB/hour, with no plateau ``` ## Steps to reproduce 1. Run XFCE 4.20 with the `xfce4-sntray-plugin` (StatusNotifier / "AppIndicators in FlowBox") added to the panel. 2. Run one or more tray applications that update their icon/menu frequently (e.g. `nm-applet`, `redshift`). 3. Leave the session running and watch the hosting `wrapper-2.0` process: ``` watch -n 60 'ps -o pid,rss,cmd -C wrapper-2.0 | grep sntray' ``` 4. Observe RSS climbing without bound (hundreds of MB per hour here). ### Likely trigger: StatusNotifier item icon/menu updates At capture time the `org.kde.StatusNotifierWatcher` (provided by this very plugin/wrapper, `:1.32`) had these registered tray items: ``` :1.7310/org/blueman/sni (blueman) :1.37/org/ayatana/NotificationItem/nm_applet (nm-applet) org.kde.StatusNotifierItem-1511802-1 (tomboy-ng) :1.57/org/ayatana/NotificationItem/redshift (redshift) ``` Several of these (notably **nm-applet** and **redshift**) push frequent icon/tooltip/`dbusmenu` property updates over D-Bus. The growth pattern is consistent with the plugin allocating new `GdkPixbuf` / icon-pixmap / menu objects on each `NewIcon` / `NewToolTip` / menu-layout update and failing to release the previous ones. (This is a hypothesis based on the heap signature and item set, not yet confirmed with a Valgrind/heaptrack capture.) ** Affects: xfce4-sntray-plugin (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2155768 Title: Severe memory leak in `libsntray-xfce` (xfce4-sntray-plugin) To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xfce4-sntray-plugin/+bug/2155768/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
